Chapter 7

The four of them made it to the Red Moon Cafe in record time and only a few minutes before the restaurant’s posted closing time.

"My goodness!" Cindy Wong smiled at them. "I don't believe you've ever stopped in quite this late. Did you have to work overtime today?"

Brian shook his head. "No, Mrs. Wong, we aren’t here to eat. We were talking about your robbery last week and we think, well the thing is ..." He was hesitant to simply accuse her bookkeeper of the crime.

"Mrs. Wong," Jim interjected. "Have you restored your backed up computer files yet?"

She looked puzzled but shook her head. "No, in fact I just gave the new computer and the back-up to my bookkeeper a couple of hours ago. She'd offered to take care of it for me and since ..." She shrugged. "She'll have it back to me Monday morning."

"With all the evidence erased," Dan muttered darkly as Mart simply groaned.

"What's wrong?" she asked as she studied the gloomy expressions on young men's faces. "Let me guess: You're not here for pot-stickers, are you?"

Brian shook his head. "We think your bookkeeper may have arranged the hold-up just to get your books and records."

"Tammy Ashby?" She spoke in disbelief and then shook her head again. "She wouldn't do something like that. She's a reputable bookkeeper. Besides, she already has access to my books and records, she doesn't need an excuse."

"She doesn't have access to your daily transactional details, does she?" Dan asked, recalling his conversation with Mr. Lytell. "I mean certainly you give her some kind of summary reporting, maybe a monthly report.”

"Oh, Daniel ..." She sighed and motioned to the boys to sit down. "Let me lock the doors and close-up. Then we'll talk."

The four of them sat at a nearby round table and waited for Cindy to join them. She called something in a foreign language to the employees working the backroom and then offered them water or sodas. They declined and she looked around the table, taking her full measure of each of them.

"Tell me why you think my bookkeeper would steal from me," she ordered calmly.

Brian did the talking. "First, you said she insisted the three people that held you up were males," Brian held out one finger. "You told me it was obvious they were women. Why would she mislead the police about that?"

He paused only a moment and, extending a second finger, continued. "Second, from what we can tell you have a fairly sophisticated point-of-sale system you use at the restaurant, is that correct?"

Cindy nodded.

"Who recommended that system to you?" Dan interrupted.

"Ms. Ashby recommended it," she admitted, shifting in her seat.

Brian held up a hand to forestall any more questions from the rest of the guys. "Third, you mentioned that the three individuals who robbed your store were more interested in your computer. The only thing on your computer is the books and records of the restaurant, correct?"

Again she nodded and then added, “And Zane's term paper. He wouldn't like it if I failed to mention that." She gave them a sad smile.

"If it's a system like many that are used today, it doesn't save any personal identification from your customers. For example, if my Dad came in here and used his debit card for lunch, it wouldn't save his name with his credit card information. It would only tally how much business was done on credit cards. Am I right?"

"Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?"

"The computer itself has almost no value. Selling it on the street or using a fence -- they'd only get about a hundred bucks. So someone has to be interested in the data. Since you don't save names and credit cards who could possibly want your data?"

"I... I guess I don't know."

"Someone with something to hide!" Mart interjected. He placed both hands palms down on the table and leaned forward. "Mrs. Wong, have you ever restored a computer back-up?"

"No," she answered. "But we have always been very careful to make good back-ups."

"One of the things we've learned at school is that companies don't just make daily back-ups, they go through a process every so often where they actually take one of their back-ups and attempt to do a restore of their systems and records. That's the real test of a good back-up process: Can you take your back-up and restore your system? Then there are the issues of on-site backups, off-site back-ups, if you want to have a hot back-up or will a cold back-up suffice. After you address all those issues associated with your COOP then you --"

"Whoa there, buddy!" Dan held up a hand to stop his friend. "If Mrs. Wong's getting all this, then she's the only one. The only ‘coop’ that I know about is a chicken coop. Boil it down to simple words using plain English, like you'd explain it to Bobby."

For one quick moment Mart looked taken aback. Slowly nodding as comprehension dawned on him, he took a deep breath. "If you’ve been backing up your business records each day, that's a great start, but there can be problems with taking a back-up and restoring everything to a new computer. For example, a different computer might have an older or newer version of the software you were running, and that could create problems restoring a backup."

"Okay, I could see that," she admitted. "But what about this ‘coop’ you mentioned?"

"It's an acronym, IT, uh, information technology lingo for Continuity of Operations Plan. Information Technology departments have them as well as the military. It's a plan for how to handle running your business after a disaster of sorts. Similar to what you went through over the weekend."

"That makes sense," she said. "If I'd had some of that information written down, then I could've replaced my credit card machine a little quicker."

"Exactly!" Mart beamed as if he had just aced a quiz.

"Are you saying that if Tammy comes in on Monday and tells me that the back-up failed … then she's guilty of stealing from me?"

The four guys exchanged uncomfortable looks.

"Are you completely comfortable moving forward with the assumption that your accountant couldn't possibly be stealing from you?" Jim asked. "If so, we'll leave and drop this entire thing."

Cindy was quiet for a moment and then sighed. "I really want you to be wrong." She said slowly, as if carefully considering her words. "But no, I'm not completely comfortable ignoring your points, even if they are circumstantial. Would it be wrong to let it go for now and then if the back-up fails, revisit her possible motives?"

"The thing is," Brian looked around at the group. "If we're right, then Tammy is going to destroy your back-up. If the back-up fails, or if she gets the system working without any transactions or details, just a summary of where you were, then the evidence against her is destroyed.”

"We may not have ever done a system restore like Martin mentioned," she said with a small smile. "But we do have multiple back-ups. We've always left a back-up here in the store and taken one home. Not to mention, even if both of those fail, I have two weeks of back-ups saved on separate disks."

"Really?" Mart brightened considerably. "Then let's go do our own back-up and see what we find."

"Do you think you could?" Jim asked him.

"If Ms. Wong has media for the program she uses so that I can load her software on my computer, then yeah, I'm pretty sure I can do it.” He looked slightly less confident than he had earlier, but fixed his gaze on her expectantly.

She nodded slowly. "Yes, I have it." Before the boys could react, she held up a hand. "But I'm not comfortable with this approach. Tammy Ashby deserves to be presumed innocent. Before we do anything, let's give her a chance to do a restore of the system."

The four men exchanged looks and then nodded. "Okay," Brian answered as the spokesperson. "We'll wait and see.

"If she comes back and tells me that the back-up didn't work, then we'll take the entire thing to Detective Webster," she replied. "No fooling around with trying to accuse Ms. Ashby of anything."

A chorus of groans met her condition. "Gleeps, Mrs. Wong," Mart started. "Anyone but Spider! If you'd heard him the other night … he's totally insufferable!"

"Sorry," she said. "But you're forgetting that even though no one was hurt last week, those teenagers had a gun. That is serious enough that we're not going to make any accusations. We take the evidence to the police or just forget it." She surveyed the dismal faces surrounding her and sighed. "None of you are going to do anything in the meantime. Agreed?"

The four of them nodded reluctantly and stood to leave. There was nothing to do now but wait.